Friday, January 11, 2013

What are you willing to trade for a 2% raise?

It’s the “Year of the Teacher,” so we
are going to offer you a 2% raise if you give up your fair dismissal
policy.Isn’t it wonderful that
according to Education Week’s Quality Counts that we have the 4th
best state school system in America, but don’t we need to get rid of all those
bad teachers.This has been the
incongruent message of the first week of the General Assembly.

If there is a cause for hope, it is
that there is bipartisan recognition in the Education Committee of the Senate
Finance Committee that we cannot maintain a high quality teaching core without
raising salaries.Republican Tommy
Norment and Democrat Dick Saslaw are both on that same page.

Although Senator Obenshain
reintroduced his bill eliminating continuing contract from last session (SB
935) it appears that most of the attention will be on the companion bills
carried by Delegate “Dickie” Bell and Senator Norment.

·Extend
probationary period from 3 – 5 years (teachers only, not administrators)

·Teachers who have
continuing contract in a Virginia school division who transfer to another
Virginia school division will serve 2 years on probation before returning to
continuing contract status. It is currently 1 year.

·Teacher
incompetence is defined in the VA State Code. This bill would expand the
definition to include 1 or more unsatisfactory evaluations. In other
words, teachers who receive 1 unsatisfactory evaluation may be deemed
incompetent and recommended for dismissal. However, the bill would not
require dismissal.

·The 3-member fact
finding panels for teacher dismissal cases will be replaced by 1 hearing
officer who may be an employee of the school division. The hearing
officer would be selected by the school board. The hearing officer would
run the hearing and provide the evidence to the school board but will not make
a recommendation.

·The definition of
teacher is changed to exclude a wide array of school personnel now covered by
teacher contracts such as school psychologists, math and reading specialists
and diagnostic personnel.

The change in the dismissal process is
our biggest concern as we do not believe it will afford adequate due process to
teachers.

We will be working our hardest to fix
these bills by offering amendments to restore fairness and due process.Please stay posted as we will be calling on
you to lobby from afar when the time is right.